


I Bet You Look Good On a Cellphone

by AbbeyWan



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/F, Instagram, minor bakura/malik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2020-08-23 08:01:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20239456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbeyWan/pseuds/AbbeyWan
Summary: Malik is making bank doing modeling on the side, and Mai wants in on the hustle.





	1. Chapter 1

Mai stood to the side and waited for Bakura to snap a quick photo of Malik talking to his siblings in the pool. He was always doing that – taking photos of Malik. It was something about him that Mai could very nearly understand, at least when she looked at Isis.

“SPF me.”

Bakura looked like a quintessential vampire as he sat under an umbrella, wrapped in a gauzy black robe, huge sunhat off to the side. He sighed and set down his phone, passing her a large bottle of sunscreen. “Remember being sixteen years old and running across the open desert with your tits out and never burning even once?”

Mai snorted a laugh despite herself. “Most of us didn’t steal a body off of somebody else halfway through our teen years.”

“When you were merely stealing lipgloss, I was stealing bodies. I’m the greatest thief who ever lived.” He yawned and pointed at the pool bar. “I’m getting a beer, water?”

“I guess I should.”

“That’s the spirit. Or should I say-”

“You are, we all remember.” She glared at him and took the lounge chair next to his as he got up to fetch the drinks.

She was halfway through applying the sunscreen when she heard a shrill voice interrupt the relative peace of the resort pool. “Oh my god, I TOLD you it was the same pool!”

Mai glanced up to see a gaggle of teenaged girls pointing and gawking at the Ishtar siblings. One of them broke away from the others, who was holding her back, and walked over to them. “Namu! I just saw your post! I can’t believe you’re staying at the same resort as me! I need to get a selfie with you!”

Malik turned his head, sliding his sunglasses up to get a proper look at her. He immediately switched to a polite smile, and said something at a reasonable volume that Mai couldn’t hear.

“You look shocked.” Bakura pressed a cold glass of water against the side of her face, and Mai jumped.

She huffed as she took the water, “Why’s a teenager hitting on your husband?”

“He’s insta-famous, babe.” Bakura took a long drag from his bottle, “They’re annoying, but I’m used to it now.”

“Malik has an Instagram?”

Bakura laughed hard enough that it was irritating. “Malik’s a king on Instagram. He gets free drinks because of his Instagram. He gets paid to show up and model for events. He gets new Duel Monsters cards a month early to promote the sets.”

“What the fuck!? I don’t get that shit and I got named hottest duelist-”

“Online article, not an official ranking. Start doing some hustle and maybe you can get some of the perks.” Bakura giggled as the rest of the girls crowded around Malik, clearly deriving some sort of perverse pleasure from watching him have to keep up his social face in front of so many annoying kids.

“I got banned from Instagram ages ago.”

Bakura grinned, “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Well, you have a hot wife who probably can’t even imagine doing the sorts of things that get you banned from family websites. Do what I do and ride on your spouse’s pretty face.”

“I ride her face plenty, she’s not as innocent as you think she is.”

Bakura rolled his eyes, “If you make an account, I’ll snap some photos of her with Namu. They’re probably better than anything you can shoot, so be grateful for the promotion.”

“You’re a horrible bastard, but I’ll take it.” She couldn’t really turn the offer down, not when she was already planning on buying a high end camera and kicking her inlaws’ asses at getting free merch from Kaiba Corp.

* * *

Mai always woke up later than Isis, and the next morning was no exception. She rolled over and groaned when the curtains over the sliding glass doors to the patio were pulled open. “Some of us are trying to sleep in on vacation.”

“Look at the view! I never would have imagined standing in a patio looking out over the ocean like this!”

Mai groaned and sat up, and found herself agreeing about the view. Isis was wearing a bathrobe, and framed beautifully by tropical scene behind her. Mai snatched her phone and took a picture on the sly while she looked out.

“Hey, did you know about Malik’s Instagram?”

Isis turned back around and leaned against the glass. “You’re referring to the fans from yesterday? He gets paid to be in pictures, and he’s a minor celebrity. You know, the first time we were ever outside he got attached to a page from a fashion magazine, maybe he finds modeling as freeing as the bike is.”

Mai chewed her lip, “Do you know how much free stuff he gets for doing it?”

“Free clothes, free workout equipment, free diet food. I know the gist.”

“Free duel monster cards! Bakura showed me some shit yesterday, and he’s rolling in it!”

Isis raised her eyebrow, and Mai knew she was caught. “You want to compete with him?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got some sketchy internet history. I was thinking maybe-“

“I am a respected member of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, not a fashion model.”

Mai groaned, “It’d be fun! Malik’s name is Namu on there, so nobody knows anything about his personal life. You can even pretend to be some regular museum intern or something and share stuff about archaeology when you feel like it! Come on, he gets cards a month early sometimes!”

“A whole month?” Isis narrowed her eyes.

“A whole month!”

“I could strategize well ahead of potential opponents if I had access to new cards that far ahead.” She looked over her shoulder at the ocean, quickly weighing her options. “Fine. But I won’t be doing anything inappropriate.”

Mai shot another picture with her cellphone, and then stuck her tongue out. “Do you wanna do something inappropriate before breakfast, though?”

“Breakfast closes in fifteen minutes, we might as well occupy ourselves until we can go out for lunch.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having some complicated life balancing issues lately. Instead of dealing with the overwhelming task of wrangling this entire thing and posting it in a finished chunk, I'm just going to trickle out as I'm able over the next few weeks. I hope nobody is disappointed, I just want to be able to share some as I'm able, and it should be all posted soonish?

It was late afternoon when they met up with Bakura and Malik on the beach.

“You don’t want to get your hair in your face, you have work to do.” Bakura’s hair was pinned back and twisted into a high bun. He looked ridiculous, but his unimpressed glare at Mai convinced her to accept one of his hair ties and do the same. “It’s Malik’s job to look pretty when we do this shit, and it’s my job to do all the work of cramming all of that pretty into one photo. If you’re obsessed with your own look, you’re not going to have the flexibility to get the best shots.”

He led them to a photogenic rockface jutting into the ocean, and immediately took charge. Mai hadn’t ever seen him so comfortable in his actions, he did it without any dramatic bluffing, and had Malik and Isis arranged how he wanted them quickly and efficiently without complaints from either Ishtar. Which, in Mai’s opinion, was rather difficult when it came to Ishtars.

“We’re coming up on golden hour, which is basically just a nice warm sexy bit of evening that everybody loves. I’m going to take some shots of them, and then I can help you try a few.” He held up his camera, and Mai already felt deeply out of her league.

“I thought you had to shoot the photos on a cellphone.”

“You can do a lot with a phone camera, but uploading stuff to your phone from something like this is better in my opinion. I only use my phone for candids, people love candids. Do whatever you want though, I’m not an expert, I just got Malik a few hundred thousand new internet fans.”

He squatted down in the sand and started crabwalking, planking, and leaning at odd angles as whatever inspiration seemed to take hold of him. Mai tried not to laugh, knowing she would probably have to do the same dumb thing if she wanted to get the kind of shots Bakura could apparently get.

“Isis, lean back further by maybe half an inch-

Malik, left leg higher-

Both of you, shoulders back a bit further-“

He continued directing and bouncing around between odd positions until suddenly he nodded to himself and waved Malik and Isis over to him. “Poke through and delete whatever you hate, I got some good shots.”

He passed the camera over and then walked back to Mai, “When they’re done with that, you can try positioning them and do a round to put on Isis’ new blog. I’ll use my photos to announce that Namu’s sister just got an account, and after that it’s all going to be based on your hard work.”

“We decided she’ll be Ishizu-“

“Because nobody can pronounce Isis.”

Mai blushed, because it had taken her ages to get comfortable pronouncing their names, “Well, yeah, but Malik still wants his privacy and we figured changing it up a little will keep them both a little more anonymous.”

“I deleted the crap work, you’re the worst photographer I’ve ever fucked.” Malik stuffed the camera back into Bakura’s hands, and Bakura actually blushed.

“You’re the worst model I’ve ever fucked.”

“That’s because, unlike me, you’ve only fucked one model.”

Isis clicked her tongue, and her brother winced as if he’d completely forgotten she was standing behind him. “I believe Mai is going to be taking some photos now, drink some water and get ready for another round, brother.”

Bakura gave Mai a quick rundown of his camera’s complicated dials and buttons. She took a quick shot of Isis drinking water to try it out, and smiled when the image on the little screen looked almost as pretty as the real life version.

“Okay, I don’t really want to do the same stuff, so why don’t you uh, stand in the water?”

Malik gave her a dubious look, but stuffed his hands in the pockets of his swim trunks and stepped ankle deep into the water. Isis followed with a little more confidence, apparently willing to trust her wife on something neither of them had any clue how to pull off correctly.

“Can you turn to look out towards the ocean? Oh-“ She noticed that Malik’s scars peeked out over his shoulders from under his tank top. “Isn’t it bad if some of your scarring is in these?”

“Bakura photoshops them out, I’ll just have him do it on anything you accidentally catch them in before you can have the files.”

“Okay-“ Mai didn’t feel particularly confident, but she raised the camera to her eye and started trying to figure out what kind of composition she was creating. All three of them were lost at sea with the new setup at first, but she slowly began getting a better idea of what she wanted to do, and started giving them proper instructions about how exactly she needed them to be standing in the waves.

She didn’t feel confident in her work, but Mai finally felt like she’d exhausted what she could do with the two of them, and called them back to look her work over.

Malik was picky, and eviscerated most of her shots, but there were still three or four he found satisfactory enough to let her keep. “You need to figure out how to use a camera, but you’re not a total lost cause. You even managed to time your shots to the waves pretty good in some of these, and that’s kind of tricky.”

Isis seemed to approve of anything Malik found satisfactory, but she complimented one in particular where a wave splashed up around both of their legs, and Mai became dead set on using that one.

“It’s getting too dark to work, so we’re heading out. I’ll send you your files whenever they’re ready, might be a few days.” Bakura made an earnest effort to walk cool as he headed away, but after a few paces Malik scooped him up into a bridal carry and laughed at his yelp of protest, cheerfully hauling him away while shouting his goodbyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes life gets really complicated and weird.   
Sometimes you decide you hate the ending you wrote the story to have, throw it out, and spend half a year unsure of how to resolve a fic you left hanging in edits for far too long.   
Visionshipping is always rough, and it's going to take some serious effort to ever do them again, lol. I love 'em, but they always give off the vibe that they already have their lives sorted, and I don't have half a clue what that feels like.   
It's short, it's imperfect, but I closed their dang story!

They sat in the shade of a wide beach umbrella. Mai was already a few drinks in despite the early hour, and feeling giggly, “Do you think Malik has actually slept with-“  
“He’s my brother.”  
“He was just teasing Bakura, right?”  
“He needed the dark power of the Millennium Rod to do the same thing I did with only an archaeology degree, a few connections, and some trading cards to wave under noses. That damned Spirit is the only person dumb enough to fall for him, pretty or not.” Isis took an elegant sip of her mojito. Conversation closed.  
The move made Mai more aware of how much Isis looked damn hot sitting there in her lounge chair, and she pulled her phone out to snap a quick photo. Bakura had started getting to her, and lately all sorts of tiny moments she might have ignored before seemed deeply photogenic. “Do you think I’m losing track of real life, taking all these photos?”  
Isis shook her head, “You seem more tuned in to your surroundings. I suspect Malik wanted Bakura to try photography because he was always so vigilant of everything around him. Malik told me once that he’s glad Bakura can see beautiful things as much as dangerous ones, now. I think perhaps you were worried about what you would see if you truly looked, and now that you’ve looked you’re finding beautiful things too.”  
Mai blushed and leaned back in her chair, flustered. “Don’t do this when I’m drunk, babe,” she groaned and downed the rest of her own mojito, “As long as it doesn’t bug you, I guess.”  
“I like it. I didn’t notice the flowers on the trellis at breakfast until you told me to go stand next to them. I’ll certainly tell you if you get bothersome.” 

\--

Bakura’s edits popped up in Mai’s inbox a few hours later. She had just climbed out of the shower, so it was a pain to see ‘If you don’t set up her account tonight, I’m just going to post Malik’s without tagging her’.   
“Dirty bastard, he didn’t say we had to work on vacation.”  
Isis leaned over her shoulder to get a look at the screen. “He’s still done most of the work. Just make an account and post the pictures.”  
“Take your damn shower.” Mai rolled her eyes and flopped over onto the bed as Isis giggled and slid past her into the bathroom. She snatched Isis’ phone and did her level best at setting up a respectable account for Ishizu, typing in some generic lines about loving travel and history.   
She sent the account information over to Bakura, uploaded a set of his photos, and then sorted through a few of her other pictures of Isis and tossed a few of those up onto the account to pad it out.   
By the time Isis was done showering a few followers had already shown up, presumably Malik’s fans curious about his sister.   
“Somebody already asked if you’re single.”   
“Impressive.”   
“Somebody just told him to back off because you’re Namu’s girlfriend. There’s no freakin’ way this stuff is going to get us a Duel Monsters sponsorship.”


	4. Chapter 4

Isis grinned at her phone and snapped a quick selfie from her desk. A virtual Cat of Ill Omen sat draped over her shoulders. ‘Guess what Kaiba Corp’s up to?’

It had started with just a few interesting shots from dig sites, but as the months passed she’d gotten more confident with taking her own pictures between shoots with Mai. The casual shots of dig sites had rather quickly escalated into talking about working in archaeology, which had escalated into giving advice to high schoolers about colleges and careers. Seemingly overnight Ishizu had turned into a History Nerd model and Mai had gone wild with shoots of Isis dressed up in historical garb. 

Seto had called after her first 100k breaking photoshoot – a corny setup with Isis in Instagram-appropriate ancient Egyptian garb next to a statue of Sekhmet in Karnak. 

“Duel Monsters has its roots in Egyptian history. Now that Kaiba Corporation officially owns Duel monsters, we want to create a scholarship to encourage study in ancient… folklore… that will help enrich and diversify the game. We’re doing a limited edition run of Tomb Guardians with new art to go with the announcement, and we want you to be the one to make it.” 

She had very calmly agreed to partner with Kaiba Corp for the project, and then dialed Mai and screamed for nearly an hour. Her voice had been hoarse by the time she dialed Malik and told him Namu was just too bland of a model to get the big scoop. 

Bakura had tried to call her back for more information a dozen times after she hung up on them.

The digital cat stretched and jumped down onto her desk, vanishing into a little electronic keychain. The project was a virtual pet built with the most cutting edge Solid Vision tech Kaiba Corp could provide. So far she rather liked her cat, he’d been built to be more independent and dynamic than other virtual pets on the market, and she had to admit that sometimes she mistook him for the real deal. 

Her phone buzzed – Mai. 

“It’s a slow day! Don’t scold me about doing side projects at work again!” 

Mai laughed on the other end, “What, did you put up a picture of that damned Tamagotchi that keeps chewing up my slippers?” 

“He would like you better if you treated him like you’d treat a real cat, you know how the technology works!” She patted his keychain as if to apologize for letting Mai speak ill of him. 

“I didn’t see it, I’m just done from my shoot early. The clients were a pain, so I gave ‘em the bare minimum. Want me to swing by and pick you up for dinner?” 

It was Isis’ turn to laugh, “Do good work, even when you hate the clients. But yes.” 

“Hey, I have waiting lists. I can blow off a few squares. About half an hour.” 

She hung up, and Isis sighed. Sometimes Mai could be too much like her brother, really, but somehow she liked having both of them around. 

Things were nice, things were settled. Mai loved doing photoshoots, as much as she complained about the clients, and Isis had entire scholarships in her name. Mai's dumb bet had paid off.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this was posting this Saturday, so I've reviewed the introductory section so that it can go up with the rest of the collection, and I'll just post the rest this weekend at the latest.


End file.
